image by Jake Johnson "There usually isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t have my camera in my hands, and I wouldn’t have it any other way."Kira McGrigg is Nestled Pines Woodworking's Media Intern for the summer of 2017. Her passion lies in photography, specifically portraiture, and she's currently pursuing a degree in Media Studies with an emphasis in Photography and Web Development at the University of Wisconsin - Platteville, Amie's alma-mater. Media has always interested Kira because of the inescapable nature of it - our everyday lives are saturated by media content (whether that's Facebook, news outlets, user generated content, or anything in between), and she seeks to study and understand the way in which it affects society on...

"My creative process involves pushing everything to the absolute extreme limit, then pushing it a little more until it breaks. I repeat this destructive process several times until I have a really good sense of exactly where the edge of possibility lies - and then I stand on that edge and teeter in the wind." Operations Manager Matt Van Susteren has worked side-by-side with his wife Amie since the two began their careers in laser work around a decade ago. Matt has an entrepreneurial spirit, combined with an unquestionable passion for creating, learning, and engineering. His career began in pottery, taking inspiration from nature, math, science, and other artists (his personal favorite is Malcolm Davis). Much like Amie, Matt is constantly inspired by the...

"I'm pretty much inspired by everything. I find as much joy in following a bug along the sidewalk as I do watching a bird outside my window. I love standing underneath the giant skyscrapers in Chicago, or walking the cobbled streets of New York City."Laser Artist and Designer Amie Van Susteren has spent the past decade creating unique and memorable wood ornaments for state parks, national parks, museums, and more. She loves what she does, and strives to create a positive, memorable, and stress-free experience for all her wholesale clients. "We want our clients to be successful, and they want us to be successful, so we form these relationships. I covet those relationships." Amie initially received her Art Education degree from the...

"It's nice to have a relationship with clients across the country. It's fun to work with them and find out what they're doing with their business." Ricky Thaden is Nestled Pines Woodworking's Wholesale Sales Associate. He joined the team in 2017 and currently attends Edgewood College, pursuing a degree in Business Management and Marketing with an emphasis in Sales. He's a self-described Proud Cat Dad, high-school Cross Country Skiing coach, and a rising entrepreneur. Ricky has a multitude of hobbies and passions - eventually, he hopes to make a career out of them, using the knowledge he's learned from Edgewood, his alma-mater UW - Baraboo, and from Matt and Amie here at Nestled Pines Woodworking. Enamored with golf, skiing, paintballing, fishing,...